It wasn’t temporary; it drags on and on; it may never end; oh godddd.
How could we have known in March that America wouldn’t have the capacity to put its big-kid britches on and end this shit? (Okay, yeah, now that I’ve typed it out, I see it. We were doomed from the start.)
It’s been a dark summer. The novelty of being stuck at home wore off in June but at least it was still summer for the kiddo. I could work and he could play video games and watch movies and run around outside. It was fine inside. The world beyond our yard was burning and I spent hours and hours doomscrolling and sobbing (still do, but I’m trying to limit myself). I put a mask on and marched with thousands and screamed names — George, Breonna, Ahmaud. It felt like something. I thought a lot about the toxic sludge I was weaned on and how the first time my dad met his newborn grandson, he laid a confederate flag down next to his tiny body in the crib and took a photo. I allowed it. I didn’t want to make a fuss. I want to throw up now. I want to throw up forever at what I was raised to believe. How can I ever make it right?
Something broke in me at the beginning of the summer. The depression I’m always flirting with moved in and crashed on my couch. Suddenly I was unable to do anything but despair. I couldn’t make anything anymore. I couldn’t draw. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t read a book. I couldn’t take a walk. I could just worry and demolish my nails and then my cuticles and then the skin up to my knuckles.
I finally worked up the courage to go on a walk yesterday morning. And again this evening. Depression really is a long, slow climb out of a big, dumb pit.
The virus’ body count grows. We’re north of 180,000 now and a great deal of people give zero fucks. I go to Rutherford County every other week and there’s no pandemic there. I saw a lady in scrub pants and a NICU top in a crowded public place with no mask on. I’ll never wrap my mind around this. I’ll never forgive the people who politicized being thoughtful and trying to take care of each other.
When school started, all hell broke loose. It’s 100% virtual so the boy and I have dueling Teams meetings every hour on the hour and from 8 to noon I work while keeping an ear tuned to what his teacher is saying so that I can make a note when she says he needs to do something. Because he is often oblivious. To him, he’s watching really boring TV in Spanish. No — literally in Spanish (it’s a Spanish immersion school).
This experience has affirmed what I already knew: Teachers should be paid a million dollars — A MILLION DOLLARS.
And parents can’t work and teach at the same time. Anyone who says you can is lying or leaving something out or their work isn’t very good or their child is extraordinarily on top of their shit. Or they’re a witch. The point is it’s hard and it drains every ounce of energy and patience from me and I’ve had some very bad days when I have not been a good mother or a good employee and I just gave up and went back to bed. I try to give myself grace but I’ve always felt like I have a limited supply and I’d rather not waste it on myself.
We’re barreling into fall now. It feels like we’re on an old wooden rollercoaster that hasn’t been inspected in a while and definitely is going to get the park shut down once they fish the bodies out of the decorative lake below. I feel lucky that the virus has stayed largely away from us (as far as we know). I am grateful that I’ve still got a (very busy) job and that we are able to do virtual school at home, even if it is a frustrating experience. I miss the little things — eating in restaurants, wandering aimlessly around a store, carefree roadtrips where peeing in a rural gas station didn’t feel like a life-risking endeavor.
I don’t know what any of this looks like on the other side but I’m ready to get there. There has to be another side, doesn’t there?
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